Reading the Ingredients List

Ingredients are listed in order of weight, most to least. Here is what to watch for:

• If sugar appears in the first three ingredients, the product is essentially a dessert
• Sugar hides behind dozens of different names: high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, rice syrup, agave nectar, and more
• "Natural flavors" is a catch-all term that tells you almost nothing about what is actually in the food
• Long lists of unrecognizable chemical names generally signal ultra-processed food

The front of the package is marketing. The back is where the truth lives.